SFPA-Sponsored Poetry Contests
SFPA Poetry Contest
Our contest is intended to raise funds for SFPA, as well as to draw more attention to speculative poetry and reward writers of good speculative poems. An eligibility survey was taken following the 2015 contest.

Contest Update:

Results of the 2023 contest have now been posted. Congratulations to the winners!

contest qrThe 2023 SFPA Speculative Poetry Contest opened for entries on June 1. Deadline was August 31.

Best Writing Contests of 2022, recommended by Reedsy

Contest Rules: The SFPA speculative poetry contest is open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes will be awarded for best unpublished poem in 3 categories: Dwarf (poems 1–10 lines [prose poems 0–100 words]); Short (11–49 lines [prose poems 101–499 words]); Long (50 lines and more [prose 500 words and up]). Line count does not include title or stanza breaks. All sub-genres of speculative poetry allowed in any form. Entries are read blind; friends/family/students of the judge may not enter. 2022 winners are posted here.

Prizes: In each category (Dwarf, Short, Long): $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, $25 Third Prize. Publication on the SFPA website for first through third places.

2023 Judge: Michael Arnzen
Michael Arnzen photoMichael Arnzen holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his disturbing (and often funny) fiction, poetry and literary experiments, including the uniquely musical horror collection available on cd, Audiovile. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University since 1999, and has work forthcoming in Weird Tales, Writing Poetry in the Dark and more. He also was Secretary/Treasurer of the SFPA way back in the early 1990s.
See what he's up to now at michaelarnzen.com or listen to him read at arnzen.bandcamp.com

2023 Contest Chair: R. Thursday
R. Thursday photoR. Thursday (they/them) is a writer, educator, historian, and all-around nerd. When not subverting Middle School Social Studies curriculum, they can be found cooking the spiciest version of any given dish, playing video games, reading, watching cartoons, and writing about vampires, superheroes, queerness, mental health, space, monsters, and on a very good day, all of the above. They placed second in the 2021 Rhysling Award for Short Poems, and the 2022 Bacopa Formal Verse Contest. Their work has been published in Vulture Bones, The Poet's Haven, Crow and Quill, Eye to the Telescope, Sheepshead Review, Luna Station Quarterly, Book of Matches, and many other fine journals. They live in South King County, Washington, with the world's most copacetic cat.

Previous SFPA Contests

2022 winning poems
2021 winning poems
2020 winning poems
2019 winning poems
2018 winning poems
2017 winning poems
2016 winning poems
2015 winning poems
2014 winning poems
2013 winning poems
2012 winning poems
2010 New Poets Contest: Ekphrasis
2008 Poetry Contest: Energy
2007 Poetry Contest: Sonnets
2006 Poetry Contest
SFPA has published anthologies of past selected contest poems.

2008 SFPA Energy contest anthology

2007 SFPA sonnet contest anthology

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